


This is All Made up of Stars

by queenklu



Series: tumblr au meme ficlets of randomness [3]
Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:09:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenklu/pseuds/queenklu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fuck-it-fire-everything treated me to the prompt of: "Marcus/Esca IN SPAAAAACE." </p>
<p>So I obliged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is All Made up of Stars

“The chip means you have to obey me,” Marcus says, feeling sick. “You have to go. Take the Eagle. Find help if you can.” His hands shake with the cold of space as life support shudders closer to death, but he presses the bitdrive into Esca’s palm and forces his fingers closed around it.

“I swore an oath of honor never to abandon you,” Esca snaps, near snarling. The blue of his skin is almost grey with distress, sparking whorls of silver down his bare arms. He plants his knees either side of Marcus’s useless cyborg leg, close enough Marcus could reach out and wrap him in his arms.

“If you want me to leave,” Esca whispers, “set me free.”

An unweildy tangle of emotion wells up in Marcus’s chest, and he curses all the stars for the twisted road that brought him here. But he knows what he has to do, above all else—get Esca out of danger, keep the Eagle safe.

He uses Esca’s father’s knife to dig the chip from Esca’s arm. Not a single wince of pain shows in the Brigantes’ face, even as a thin blue rivulet of blood coils down Esca’s wrist. The chip is no bigger than a Hadrian bean, red tracker light glowing dimly under the swipe of Marcus’s thumb as he crushes it.

“You’re free,” Marcus says, smiling against his weary, heavy heart. “You’re free, my friend.”

Esca’s mouth on his is a flame, a space jump, seeing the moons of Rome’s Capitol for the first time, all rolled into one—bright and sweet and hot. Marcus parts his mouth and _wants,_ and when Esca is finished with him he is left half-starved anyway.

“I will return,” Esca tells him, bringing their foreheads together. And then he’s gone.


End file.
